by Nicole Silverio
Republican nominee Donald Trump said on Wednesday that ABC’s license should be revoked over their alleged bias toward Vice President Kamala Harris at the presidential debate.
Trump told the co-hosts of “Fox & Friends” that ABC moderators David Muir and Linsey Davis were “dishonest” for not correcting Harris’s false statements about the Charlottesville riot in 2017, his support for in vitro fertilization (IVF) and The Heritage Foundation’s Project 2025. The former president said the ABC moderators unfairly fact-checked him while allowing Harris to state false and misleading claims.
“They’re dishonest and because I think ABC took a big hit last night. I mean, to be honest, as a news organization they have to be licensed to do it. They ought to take away their license for the way they did that,” Trump said. “Bloodbath was referred for the economy. Everybody loved that term because as soon as they heard that word, it is kind of a vicious word. But, referring to the economy, they have created an economy, bloodbath is the word I used, and it was fine in that context. They were trying to make it sound like it was a riot or something.”
“IVF, I was a leader on IVF. The IVF, which is in vitro fertilization, I was a leader on that. When I first heard about it, from the very beginning, I was one of the leaders on it and the Republican Party has been a leader on it. [Harris] was trying to say it was the opposite,” Trump continued. “The whole thing about abortion, [Muir] said, it was incredible. I think he corrected me about six times, and each time I was right.”
Trump Says ABC's License Should Be Yanked Over Debate Moderators' Performance pic.twitter.com/GRjWskZ7I3
— Daily Caller (@DailyCaller) September 11, 2024
ABC moderators appeared to repeatedly fact-check Trump while allowing Harris to get away with her false claims. Davis immediately pushed back against the former president as he said some Democratic states allow for late term abortions and for babies to be killed after a botched abortion.
Harris also falsely said that Trump plans to sign a national abortion ban if it reached his desk, though the former president has repeatedly spoken in opposition of such legislation. Muir and Davis did not correct the vice president.
The moderators allowed Harris to falsely claim that Trump stated there were “very fine people” on both sides at the riot in Charlottesville, Virginia, in 2017. Snopes rated the claim that the former president called Neo-Nazis and white supremacists false in June, noting that he said those groups of people should be “condemned totally.”
“She was using Charlottesville, and everybody, you take a look at [Fox News host] Laura Ingraham, she did it incredibly. She had it totally debunked, in fact she gets angry when people hear about Charlottesville, when they use that,” Trump told “Fox & Friends.” “Because what they did is they stopped and they didn’t put the following sentence in, and when they put the last sentence in, when it’s all put together, what I said was absolutely perfect. And ABC knew that, everybody knew that, frankly. I think they lost a lot of credibility.”
The moderators did not fact-check Harris when she alleged that Trump “intends on implementing” The Heritage Foundation’s Project 2025, a conservative policy outline and a personnel list to help serve the next Republican president. The Trump campaign has publicly disassociated itself from the initiative.
Muir and Davis further fact-checked Trump when he claimed that Haitian migrants are eating pet cats and ducks in Springfield, Ohio, by stating the local police have not received any credible reports on the matter.
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Nicole Silverio is a reporter at Daily Caller News Foundation.
